Being twenty in Alabama is hard enough if you have dark skin. Here, prejudice seeps into people’s lives until it takes root, and you always think you’re on the wrong side of the fence or, at the very least, teetering on the steepest slope. Add to that the fact that you’ve just lost your closest family members. That you’re still in college and playing on the basketball team, dreaming of soon becoming a professional. If it doesn’t work with oranges, you tell yourself, football will do. After all, you’re tall and big. Your physique lends itself to your ambitions. Your name is Deontay Wilderit’s 2005 and life is about to deal you a terrible hand of cards.
That, in fact, is the year in which Naieya is bornher little girl. Which would be wonderful news, even though the parents are very young and vaguely unprepared, but there’s more. The doctors shake their heads when they read the verdict: spina bifida. The little girl will never walk. Destined for a life of suffering. Deontay is a boy who sees the whole world crumble around him. He ends up depressed for weeks. Until, one day, he sinks into the couch at home, grabs a gun and loads it. He wants to end it. What’s the point of living that way?
An instant before pulling the trigger he realizes that he can’t give up like this. What will happen to his little girl and his partner if he leaves them abandoned to their fate? He puts the gun away and thinks. He needs money. Lots of money.. Only in this way can he hope to pay for the treatments that will make little Neieya’s existence more acceptable and, perhaps, finance a miracle solution one day. The only way he knows is through sports. Except that he’s good at basketball, but the road still seems long. The same goes for football. But he doesn’t have time. He gets up and looks at himself in the mirror. Here’s what he can do with all those muscles. Here’s how to make a lot of money in a short time. He joins his daughter in the other room, caresses her and smiles. For her he will start boxing. And he promises her that he will become a champion.
Thus begins, in a surreal and moving way, the story of one of the greatest boxers in American history. In the space of three years, Wilder manages to turn professional and strings together a monstrous series of successes, most of which by knocking out his opponent in the first round. The matches against Reggie Pena, Malik Scott and Shannon Caudle already reach an impressive media coverage. The fame that Deontay is building is granite: 32 consecutive successes give him the right to fight for the WBC world title. In the meantime, it is 2008, he takes part in the Beijing Olympics winning bronzesurrendering in the semi-final only to Clemente Russo.
People start calling him “The Bronze Bomber”, a name given to him in memory of Joe Louis (whose nickname was “The Brown Bomber”). Deontay lets everyone know that his idols are Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali and that his ambition is to get as close as possible to their stratospheric results.
Promise kept. Fight for the WBC title in 2015defeating the reigning world heavyweight champion, Bermane Stiverne. More and more money, fame, successes arrive. Every punch is landed for Neieya. Every time she takes a hit, she knows she has to fight back for her. The treatments are going well and the little girl seems to be miraculously recovering. In the meantime, the duels of planetary resonance with Tyson Fury also arrive.
They don’t end the way Wilder would like, but they still serve the ultimate purpose the former 20-year-old had set for himself.
After five surgeries the little girl starts walking again. Something impossible to believe, until a few years ago. The biggest belt, Deontay, conquered it in the ring of life.